What Dreams May Come
by Nyx
Summary: Yeah, I know it's the name of a movie. But it's also a great quote from Hamlet's soliloquy - you kno, "To be or not to be..."


What Dreams May Come  
by Nyx

"To sleep? Perchance to dream! Aye, there's the rub;   
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,   
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil..."  
-Shakespeare, "Hamlet," _To Be or Not To Be_

*

I wonder what he dreams.

I gaze down at his broken, tortured body that has finally given in to the stresses of life and try to guess what thoughts occur to his soul. Someone once said that great men dream of the simplest things; a family, a home - yet family was never his forte, and he never knew a home that was not in some way plagued by ignorance and cruelty. We are both old men, now (or should I say we were, as he is gone?) and we have changed the world. I know that I wouldn't change a day of it.

But would he, were he given a choice? Would he return to the time when he had the option of quietly settling for a quiet life? I think he would not. He could not. His life began with the fight against evil; so it ends, and so it must be. His dreams must echo that, as he lies cold and stark against the infirmary sheets. His face is wrinkled, now, with laughter and sorrow and strife, and his once-black hair is now white as snow. His papery skin seems to be the only thing holding frail bones together, and the scar upon his forehead is startlingly dark against the pallor of age and death.

I know that I, too, must follow his lead into the great unknown; I reach up to touch my face, and it is as creased as my friend's. I've begun to bald, much to my chagrin, and now there is barely any copper strands of wiry hair left - my eyesight is blurring, and I have outlived them all. Hermione - gone, thirty when she died. Ginny - gone. Fred - gone, George dying soon after. Charlie. Bill. Percy. Dean. Seamus. Justin. Parvati. Ernie. Lavender. Hannah. Colin Creevey. Even Crabbe, Goyle and Draco Malfoy have succumbed. And now Harry. The last of a generation, I think to myself. I will be the last person who remembers when Voldemort still was feared.

Voldemort, who lives on still. Voldemort, shunned and banished to Azkaban, immortal now and tortured by his own immortality. He shall never know the dreams of death - never know the sweet oblivion or the terrifying nothingness. I only suppose, of course; perhaps the dreams shall not claim me for years yet. I know, though, that as long as there was the Dark Lord to fight against I would live. He has been banished for years, now, and my life is pointless without friends. I am left alone, in an everlasting soliloquy, until such time as I leave this earth. And because of this curious predicament, I must wonder.

What dreams may come?

*  
* Fifty years later  
*

The graveyard was still and silent, misty from the morning dew that hung on the early summer roses in fat drops. A bird chirped, pulling a reluctant worm from the moist soil and cocking its head as if to ask why it heard broomsticks whooshing in the air above it, wondering what could go so fast and far. Hopping away, the robin redbreast glanced back, unsure of these intruders on its domain.

Indeed, it wasn't normal for a group of children to invade the Ministry Heroes Graveyard this early on a schoolday. But the London Hogwarts Prep School's nine-year-old class was coming for their history class, and as they piled off the special five-seater school brooms they began to run to the graves, looking for the names of people they knew to take rubbings of the stones.

The most coveted and searched-for names, however, were nowhere to be found. Rather, they were hidden, nestled behind a group of thick and thorny blackberry bushes. Grass grew rampant over the graves, but none of the sparrows that made their nests nearby seemed to care; indeed, it gave the area a rustic look, morbid though the use of it might be. The stones were more worn than the others in the graveyard, though they were newer than most; no fresh-cut flowers lay nearby, but the area looked cared-for in a different way. 

Harry Potter Hermione Granger Ron Weasley  
1981-2065 1981 - 2011 1981 - 2070

*finis

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and any other tangentially mentioned characters belong to J.K. Rowling and Scholastic Books. No copyright infringement intended.  
Sequels: Nyx does not do sequels.  
Feedback: Gratefully accepted at nyxfics@hotmail.com  
Note: If you go to my site, there's also a book cover for this short story! I'm so happy! www.geocities.com/nyxfics

~Nyx~  
the gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day  
is crept into the bosom of the sea  
-shakespeare, henry VI  
www.geocities.com/nyxfics 


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